Transplantation-based gene therapy for inflammatory diseases: focus on glomerulonephritis

Over the past decade, bone marrow transplantation has come to be considered an ideal therapeutic strategy for the treatment of certain diseases affecting the hematopoietic system such as hemophilia, and several clinical trials have been performed. Although traditionally used for the treatment of lethal diseases, it is speculated that this approach could also be used in the treatment of non-lethal but much more common diseases, which are resistant to conventional therapies, and affect a large number of patients physically and even financially. Inflammation may be one target for transplantation-based gene therapy, since macrophages and neutrophils, which are basically derived from hematopoietic stem cells, have been identified as key determinants in the development of diseases. This article focuses on the glomerulonephritis as a model of local inflammation and reviews recent investigations on transplantation-based gene therapy for inflammatory diseases.